Scientists Amazed At The First Hybrid Bird Species In Amazon

Scientists have confirmed that the golden-crowned manakin with yellow feathers which was first discovered in Brazil in 1957 but not seen again till 2002 is, in fact, a hybrid species. To ascertain this, a series of genetic and other tests were conducted by researchers.

Jason Weir from the University of Toronto in Canada said that hybrid plant species are very common, but hybrid species among vertebrates are exceedingly rare.

A hybrid species forms when two parental species mate to produce a hybrid population, which then stops being able to freely interbreed with the parental species.

In the case of the manakin, the two parents are the snow-capped manakin, named for its bright snowy-white crown feathers, and the Opal-crowned manakin, named for its brilliant iridescent crown feathers. Researchers made two separate field trips to Brazil to gather genetic and feather samples.

With the help of genome sequencing, they found that 20 percent of its genome came from the Snowy-crowned, and about 80 percent came from the Opal-crowned.

Scientists believe that the species survived owing to the geographical isolation from its parental species at some point during a past ice age when rainforest coverage contracted, and wide rivers formed natural barriers. Weir said that without geographical isolation the hybrids wouldn't have evolved as a separate species.

LOGIN

Message

Signup

Start your day with Good News!

Keep connected with the awesome developmental news and inspirational stories from India and across the globe.

Now Get Daily Good News On Whatsapp!

Enter your 10-digit mobile number below

+91

Unsubscribe: To stop the service, send 'Stop' via Whatsapp and we will stop sending you content within 24 hours.

Privacy: We respect your privacy. We store your phone number and email-id only for the purpose of sending content from My Indian Dream to you. Your phone number and any related details are NOT shared with anybody.

Disclaimer: By subscribing to this free service, you indemnify MyIndianDream.in and its owners Samvadsocial Technologies Private Limited from any damages that may occur via this service. MyIndianDream.in and its owners will not be held liable for any adverse impact that this service may lead to.

Contact: In case you have any queries, please email us at connect@myindiandream.in. Due to the large number of emails received, we may not be able to reply to every query sent, but we shall certainly look into the urgent & important ones.